November 11: Burst into Tears, Linus, Sign of Humanness

These two horse pitiers moved back along the wagon to where they could gaze in patronizing reproach at Billy--at Billy Pilgrim, who was so long and weak, so ridiculous in his azure toga and silver shoes.  They weren't afraid of him.  They weren't afraid of anything.  They were doctors, both obstetricians.  They had been delivering babies until the hospitals were all burned down.  Now they were picnicking near where their apartment used to be.

The woman was softly beautiful, translucent from having eaten potatoes for so long.  The man wore a business suit, necktie and all.  Potatoes had made him gaunt.  He was as tall as Billy, wore steel-rimmed trifocals.  This couple, so involved with babies, had never reproduced themselves, though they could have.  This was an interesting comment on the whole idea of reproduction.

 They had nine languages between them.  They tried Polish on Billy Pilgrim first, since he was dressed so clownishly, since the wretched Poles were the involuntary clowns of the Second World War.

Billy asked them in English what it was they wanted, and they at once scolded him in English for the condition of the horses.  They made Billy get out of the wagon and come look at the horses.  When Billy saw the condition of his means of transportation, he burst into tears.  He hadn't cried about anything else in the war.  

Unlike Billy Pilgrim, I cry a lot.  I cry over poems and novels.  I cry at movies and Christmas specials.  Sometimes, given the right mood and the correct amount of alcohol, I will cry when Linus tells Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Just this week, I read a short story by Alice Munro and ended up a blubbering mess.

I have always had this penchant for crying.  I think it aids me in my writing.  I am able to tap the kind of deep emotional well that poetry requires more easily than most people.  Of course, I've been teased a lot for this quality.  My wife frequently tells me that I'm a teenage girl when I read a birthday card and get choked up.  I can't help it.

Of course, at times, I'm able to control myself.  On the day my sister died, I had a few moments of complete grief, but I needed to be a little stronger since the rest of my family was a complete train wreck.  I went to the funeral home and helped finalize the plans that morning.  I planned the funeral service with our pastor, picked out the music.  The week before, I'd located the cemetery and helped order the cremation stone.  I think that I finally let loose at about 9 p.m. that evening, when I got home and one of my best friends from downstate Michigan called me.  I completely lost it.

I don't think this is necessarily a weakness on my part.  My emotional makeup allows me to be much more empathetic than most people.  That's a good thing.  It allows me to be kinder with my kids, more loving to my wife.  And, when things go terribly wrong, it allows me to be stronger, to think more clearly.

Crying isn't a sign of weakness.  Crying is a sign of humanness.  

So, Saint Marty is thankful that he's a teenage girl inside.